Jeffery Ray Williams | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Jeffery Ray WILLIAMS

Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Rape - Hitchhiking

Number of victims: 2

Date of murders: September 1, 1988

Date of arrest: 10 days after

Date of birth: June 30, 1961

Victims profile: Unna Tuxen, 24, and Kathrin Reith, 22 (German tourists)

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Coos County, Oregon, USA

Status: Sentenced to death on May 16, 1989

Jeffery Ray Williams

Coos County - Oregon

Born: 6/30/61

Sentenced to death: 5/16/1989

Williams and David Lynn Simonsen were convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death for the 1988 sexual assault and shotgun slayings of Unna Tuxen, 24, and Kathrin Reith, 22, German tourists who were hitchhiking up the West Coast near the Oregon-California border.

Interesting fact: Witnesses said Williams was the dominant partner, ordering Simonsen to kill the women. "Dave was Jeff's stooge, his gofer or whatever you want to call it," testified one acquaintance.

Status: Death Row.

FACTS

On September 3, 1988, the bodies of two women were found in a remote area near Coquille. Both women, who had been dead for two or three days, were nude from the waist down. They had been tied together at the wrists and shot in the head from close range with a shotgun. Police found a great deal of physical evidence at the scene, including tire tracks from a small automobile.

Investigators eventually determined that the victims were from West Germany. A week after the bodies were discovered, two witnesses separately came forward to report that defendant had said that he and a man named Jeff Williams had been involved in shooting two women with a sawed-off shotgun.

On September 11, 1988, police arrested defendant.